She Likes Bugs
by fringeperson
Summary: Don't own. The colourful bug came and sacrificed himself to seal her into an infant bug. This infant bug was a boy, and he was now her responsibility. Just as well she liked bugs really. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

She gently tapped her paw against the bug that was tickling her claw. She gave a despondent sigh when she learned that she was going to have to be even _more_ gentle with the bugs that were now approaching if she didn't want to squish _them_ the way she'd already squished this one. There was also the slight issue of her tails. Now, in a large open space she'd normally just let them hang behind her, but this was a large open space full of trees that were just tall enough to tickle the ends of her tails if she did that, and she _hated_ having the tips of her tails tickled. This meant that she was waving them over her back and around her sides, constantly, because 'up' wasn't a comfortable way to her to keep her tails. Only slowly of course, she knew the power of her tails and wasn't interested in destroying all the pretty trees. Even if they _did_ tickle annoyingly.

She tried again to touch one of the bugs without squishing it, and failed again, but now they were starting to jump onto her. Having been trying to achieve this approximate happening, she was most displeased to find that the little bugs made her fur itch, and so with a sigh shook them off. A quick hop – oops, smashed the tails into ground and ripped up a few trees. Oh well – and she'd managed to remove herself from where all the tickling, itching little bugs had been lined up in front of her. She was suddenly faced with a badly dressed toad though.

She wasn't overly fond of toads. Frogs made a good meal now and then, provided they weren't poisonous, but toads were always stringy and left a bad taste in her mouth. Frogs were only a little slimy at worst. This toad though was wearing clothes, as already mentioned, carried a short sword and a pipe and showed off multiple piercings along the length of its tongue as it licked one of its eyes. Another reason she wasn't all that fond of toads – their weird habits. This particular toad, as well as being badly dressed and strangely accessorised, was also carrying a very brightly coloured bug on top of its head.

She opened her mouth to breathe in the smell of this small, but bright bug. Oh, most of the smelling was in the nose, but there were a few things in the air that were easier understood when tasted. That was when she understood why the little bugs had been scampering about so frantically. They were frightened of her. Of course they were. She'd already squished two of them accidentally, and may have left a few more than a bit battered when she'd shaken the ones out of her fur. But this one, this one that was standing on top of a fashion faux-pas of an amphibian, _this_ brightly coloured bug smelled of determination. _Grim_ determination, she realised as he summoned a deal breaker.

Deal breaker. The bugs probably gave them a different name, but to her they were the deal breakers. The were the only ones who could officiate arrangements on the scale she now understood the colourful bug was making. It would be his life in exchange for the deal, whatever deal he was making. It was _always_ your own life for trade with the deal breakers. The only thing she had left to learn was her part in the deal the colourful bug was making.

She did not resist when she felt herself being dragged out, stretched, squished, forced into a smaller space than she had known even existed, and then barred there. She knew that there was no bargaining with the deal breakers for better terms. She knew this like she knew what was and wasn't good to eat, like she knew when her kindred were trapped away as she had just – and finally – been, and knew where they were. Like she knew that she had just been sealed into an infant bug, as colourful as the bug that had just sacrificed himself to the deal breaker, and that this infant bug was a boy, and that he was now _her_ responsibility.

~oOo~

The first time the nightmare came, she snapped at it and wrapped up the child's mind in as much of a comforting tail as she could fit through the bars of her cage. He was only two. She'd essentially slept through his first year, letting everything adjust and settle down while he was still totally dependant on other people. While they still cared for him _as_ a helpless dependant. Upon reaching the ripe old age of two however, since the child was walking on his own and beginning to talk, he was essentially left to take care of himself.

She taught him to scavenge and hunt so that he did not starve when the orphanage carers didn't give him anything. She taught him about which plants and animals carried poison in them so that he would not eat them by mistake and make himself sick. She taught him the best ways to keep warm when he was shut out at night. She taught him how to dig a burrow and keep it clean so that he had shelter from unkind elements, or people, as needed. She taught him how to run and how to hide when other people in the village caught sight of him, and their faces began to twist in anger and hate. She taught him how to climb trees and she taught him how to float, and then swim, because the only way for him to bathe was to sneak into the bath houses after hours and the pools were quite deep.

Then came the day the boy was enrolled in the Academy, and they both learned that there were things she _couldn't_ teach him. How to read was one of these things. Oh, she could have told him what every symbol in a seal array meant, but the written language of humans was not something she had ever concerned herself with. It also highlighted things that she _could_ teach him that she hadn't _thought_ to. Like how to use chakra, and how to _control_ said chakra – which was much harder, especially since the boy had rather a _lot_ more than his peers. Both his own, and hers. Still, he learned fast enough, but it brought up another 'something' that she couldn't teach him.

How to make friends.

After all, he'd never had one before, so he had no experience. As for her, she had the other demons, but while they were aware of each other, they didn't necessarily always get along. Her boy barely had _any_ positive human interaction at all. The adults were hateful and violent at worst and coldly indifferent at best. The children learned from the example of their parents and mimicked their behaviour. Oh certainly he'd always had her companionship, and he knew it too. She'd been very clear in explaining the full and total circumstances of how she came to reside _in_ him – slowly and over time of course, as there was only so much a child's mind could take in.

Still, the friends issue...

~oOo~

The Aburame clan was one that prided itself on its use of logic in all situations. They weren't considered one of Konoha's 'great' clans like the Uchiha or the Hyuuga – theirs was not an obvious ocular bloodline after all. Those particular clans would even argue that the Aburame clan didn't _have_ a bloodline, claiming that the child was not born with his bugs, but rather had to be planted in the child immediately after birth.

This was actually untrue. Since all members of the family had at least one colony, the kikai burrowed into the embryo as soon as it was large and stable enough to support them. The only Aburame family members who were _not_ born with the beginnings of their first colony already in them were the ones who married into the family from outside, and inserting their colonies was a _very_ delicate procedure done over the course of several weeks, beginning during the Aburame wedding ceremony.

The children of the Aburame clan, however, had a fair share of problems interacting with other children. Because they were raised to be coolly logical, even at five when they entered the Academy they thought their peers to be at least _somewhat_ childish. There was also the problems generated simply by the connection that the Aburames had with their kikai – and other bugs less directly. The way some of the children would scream at bugs, and others carelessly or maliciously squish them, set Aburame children subtly at odds against their peers. Their logic told them however that their peers would grow out of these poor behaviours and they _did_ need to work as part of a team some day.

This was the environment that Aburame Shino expected to enter based on examples given to him by his family. The Academy was, more or less, exactly as his family had told him. There were different students in his class of course, and as with all people, their attitudes were approximately unique to them. There was, however, one child who Shino found himself particularly curious about: Uzumaki Naruto.

It was strange to Shino that someone other than himself was being given such a wide berth by their peers, and even more peculiar was the treatment he received from their teachers. The teachers gave Naruto little attention except to criticise him for imagined faults or to blame him for a misbehaviour perpetrated by someone else. He saw Naruto struggling with anything written down, not an uncommon thing as they were only beginning their official schooling, but it was as though the boy had never been exposed to the written word before – something Shino had thought impossible. He saw the teachers sabotage Naruto's taijutsu training, give him next to no help at all with his ninjutsu, and completely ignore his struggle with genjutsu.

Having spent a month observing all of his classmates, and having discussed the matter with his parents – and he was surprised to see them so reticent about a matter as they had been when he asked them about Naruto – Shino decided that he would approach the other boy and try making a friend.

He waited until lunch, and approached him while he was on his own behind the school, ripping the meat off a side of rabbit with his teeth. It looked like it had been cooked over a fire, rather than in a kitchen. Shino steeled his nerve and sent one of his bugs to land on Naruto's nose.

Naruto stopped eating and went cross-eyed before laughing.

"She says you'll give yourself tummy-ache if you try getting a meal from me, little bug," Naruto said with a smile. "I don't know what she means by that, but you don't look like you eat much, so you can share my rabbit if you like."

"My kikai eat chakra," Shino said, calling the insect back to him.

Naruto blinked as the black little crawly left him and went to land on Shino's extended finger.

"Well then yeah," Naruto said, nodding to himself. "She's right. Your bug friend would get a tummy-ache." Naruto shuffled over on the bench he'd been sitting on, silently inviting Shino to sit with him, though his bright blue eyes said that he didn't expect any positive response.

Shino accepted the offered place just as silently as it had been offered. "Why would my kikai get a tummy-ache from eating your chakra?"

Naruto chuckled, and Shino could see that he was both relieved to not be rejected and guarding against being hurt.

"Have you ever eaten a lot of something, because it was really yummy, and then noticed when you'd eaten it all that you've forced your tummy to stretch out to fit it all in? A tummy-ache from eating too much?" Naruto asked.

Shino shook his head. "I always eat slowly and conscientiously, aiming only to put into my body what I need to take out from it," Shino answered.

Naruto shrugged. "Well, that's the sort of tummy-ache your bugs would get from me," Naruto explained. "According to her, your whole colony could gorge themselves and I'd still be just fine."

Shino blinked behind his dark glasses. "This is a most irregular assertion," he said. "And who is this 'her'? We are the only two people present here."

Naruto frowned and shifted on the bench. "Like you have your bugs, I have her," Naruto answered. "I can't let her out though, and it's best I don't talk about her if I can help it, since the grown-ups don't like her."

Shino frowned behind his high collar at this cryptic comment, but decided that he had learned that he and Naruto had something in common – they had passengers, allies. "Would you tell me if we were somewhere that the adults would not hear?" Shino asked.

"Oh sure," Naruto answered brightly. "She likes bugs, you know? Especially the brightly coloured ones. She sometimes complains that she has to let them come to her though, cause she accidentally squishes them if she tries to pick them up or stroke them or anything," Naruto added, a sad smile creeping onto his face. "She used to not be very good at judging how resilient things are, but she's been learning since she's been taking care of me! We learned how to be gentle enough together."

Shino had tensed at hearing that Naruto's ally squished bugs accidentally like that, but hearing that it was a thing of the past was very reassuring.

"Perhaps after classes we can go somewhere with no adults and you can tell me about her," Shino suggested.

Naruto smiled. "Sure!" he agreed, nodding once firmly. "Until then, will you tell me about your bugs?" Naruto asked, holding out his hand to accept any that wished to land on him.

"You don't mind them?" Shino checked.

Naruto shook his head. "And I don't mind them eating my chakra either," he added. "I just don't want them to get tummy-aches."

Shino nodded his understanding, and began to explain about how his colony had been with him since he was born, the habits of the kikai that made them so helpful to his family's ninja style, and had been about to begin expounding upon the other sorts of bugs his family kept when the end of lunch was called.

Upon returning to class Shino and Naruto sat together, rather than on their own in different parts of the classroom as they had before.

~oOo~

Naruto didn't have a home, not as such. He had a tree he slept in regularly. One that he'd dug a burrow under the roots of and that had a big hollow in it that was just high enough up that regular animals couldn't get in. Birds weren't a problem to him – they were a meal. So was any other small, tree-dwelling creature for that matter. Any wee beastie that decided to inspect his chosen tree while he was there and in need of meat soon became food for the growing boy.

Shino was treated to a tour of berry bushes, wild fruit trees, mushroom spots, and animal traps before they reached Naruto's tree.

"It's not fancy," Naruto said as he put some of the leaves he'd picked into a dented black kettle that sloshed a little as he hung it from a branch over a fire. "But it's filling. Help yourself while I skin the squirrel."

Shino nodded and sat down on the leaf-covered area before reaching out to try one of the red berries. "So, your ally?"

Naruto's smile was small. "The story Iruka-sensei told us today isn't exactly true," Naruto said. "The kyuubi didn't attack the village, the Yondaime didn't kill it."

Shino's eyebrows pulled down and together as he considered what Naruto was saying.

"She was just trying to pick up a bug that had been tickling her paw, and squished it by mistake. Then she tried again, more carefully, with another that had come running. Same result. Others had jumped onto her, but they itched so she shook them off," Naruto said, recalling the fox's version of events.

"What about the Yondaime not killing the kyuubi?" Shino asked.

"Can you kill chakra?" Naruto countered. "She _is_ chakra. She has form and mind, but she isn't a flesh-and-blood fox. Even if all of Konoha's ninja had a swarm like yours, they could gorge themselves on her and she would still stand."

Shino blinked behind his glasses as he began to understand. "So what really happened?"

"She says that the colourful bug – that's the Yondaime – made a pact with a being she calls the deal breaker, and now she is trapped within me. That's why the adults don't like me, because they see what they imagine her to be every time they look at me. They see a demon bent on their destruction, rather than a child, or even a curious fox who didn't know how delicate people were because she so rarely encountered us," Naruto explained, then speared the skinned and gutted squirrel on a sharpened and smoothed stick and set it over the fire to cook.

"They are illogical," Shino said firmly. "You are no more the kyuubi than I am my kikai."

Naruto smiled in gratitude over the sentiment. "She is, however, the reason why your kikai can't knock me out by eating my chakra," Naruto put in.

Shino nodded in understanding. "In the interest of sharing a friendship based on the similar experience of housing an _other_ which causes peers and elders to view us in an unflattering way, will you tell me more about yourself Naruto?"

Naruto blinked once, then smiled broadly before he launched into a dissertation of his life and the things he'd learned from his prisoner since the first time he'd been kicked out of the orphanage. How he'd met the Sandaime and now collected his orphan stipend personally and in cash since the banks all refused to give him an account, how he had needed to steal his clothes from the donations bin near the orphanage so that he had something to wear at all, and that learning henge would make his life easier because if people didn't recognise him then they wouldn't chase him off or try to beat him up. Naruto talked about learning to hunt and scavenge, learning to make a fire so he would be warm in winter and be able to cook his food. He even talked about how he'd gotten the kettle as he poured out the tea he'd made into a pair of husks that took the place of cups, and how the kyuubi explained that tea had certain health benefits, which was why he drank it. The kyuubi could heal any injury and banish any sickness, but it was important for a ninja to take care of his body.

Of course, Naruto never said 'kyuubi'. He always said 'she' or 'her'. When Shino questioned this, and he asked a great many pertinent questions as Naruto told his story, Naruto explained that her name wasn't 'Kyuubi', that 'Kyuubi no Yoko' was a name given to her by people and she wasn't entirely fond of it. It was like calling Naruto 'fox carrier boy' or calling Shino 'bug colony boy'. Her name just _wasn't_ 'fox with nine tails'. She didn't actually _have_ a name at all really, and wasn't inclined to believe she needed one.

Shino nodded in acceptance of this, but said that 'Yoko' might work as a quasi-name. "Because there will be times when 'she' is simply too broad, and having a designated title is useful," he explained.

Naruto was silent for a moment. "She agrees," he said at last. "But only because she likes 'Yoko' better than 'Kyuubi'."

They shared the squirrel – and Shino was mildly surprised at how good it tasted, even without any seasoning – and then Shino had to go home.

Naruto and Shino paired up after that. During lunch Shino talked about bugs at great length – a topic Naruto was happy to listen to – and after school they trained together, sometimes out near Naruto's tree, and other times under the supervision of Shino's father Shibi. The man was coolly indifferent to Naruto's presence generally, but Naruto got the idea that people in the Aburame clan were like that with most everybody, though with varying degrees of indifference. All that logic meant they didn't emote much, but that was fine with him.

The two friends – and they were friends – occupied the exact middle spot in the class ranking, and did so very carefully and deliberately. Naruto knew first hand the perks of being forgettable, and if the teachers ignored him as mediocre then they would leave him alone about most other things. Shino accepted that their profession as ninja was one where being unknown was desirable, however much both of them wanted to hear themselves being praised the way that the Uchiha boy in their class was praised.

~oOo~

Iruka handed over the headband with a small smile on his face – the same vaguely proud but extremely automatic smile that had been on his face all day as he ran the students through the genin exam.

"Congratulations Uzumaki," he said. "Be back in a week for team assignments."

"Thank you Iruka-sensei," Naruto answered, bowing slightly as he accepted the cloth and metal. "I would like to make a request about my team assignment if I may?"

Iruka chuckled. "You can ask, but I make no promises," he answered.

"I'd like to be on a team with Shino," Naruto said. "And I really, _really_ don't want to be on a team with Sasuke."

Iruka blinked in surprise. He'd expected Naruto to ask to be on the same team as his friend, and actually had no intention of splitting them up – teamwork was important to Konoha after all, and those two were already working as a team – but the vehement request to be away from the Uchiha boy was a surprise.

"Would having this years number one rookie on your team be so bad?" Iruka asked. "I'd have thought having a strong team mate like Sasuke would be a good thing."

Naruto frowned. "He's a self-absorbed angst-muffin," he countered. "He wouldn't work as part of a team unless it was to save his own life, and even then he'd grumble about it. Plus, because of the way I get treated by the grown-ups in town – and _everybody_ has seen that Iruka-sensei – he'd think it's alright to walk all over me too."

Iruka sighed. He knew that Sasuke was proud, but what he was hearing from Naruto sounded like more than that. He was sure that the boy would grow out of it soon enough, whatever it was. Iruka waved a hand to dismiss Naruto and got to sorting out his papers once the boy had left.

Actually, Iruka _had_ thought of putting Sasuke on a team with Naruto and Shino, certain that they would be able to balance the other boy's more dramatic attitude. It would have broken the tradition of putting the number one rookie with the class's dead last though, but since that was Nara Shikamaru – who was destined for this new generation's Nara-Akimichi-Yamanaka combo, and who only held that position because he just _didn't_ do his tests – that was going to be broken anyway.

When the students returned at the end of the week for team assignment, Iruka smiled to see that some of the students were already sitting near their team mates.

"Team one: Honda Bumi, Ichida Yoroi, Kintaro Gumi. Team two: Minamoto Jin, Sensui Ken, Uotani Taka. Team three: Hanajima Takai, Kuro Yuki, Noboue Yomi. Team four: Aoyaki Chu, Ishiguro Yuu, Kubo Yuiko. Team five: Hatawari Umi, Watsuki Natsume, Yoshida Kara. Team six: Kuchiki Tatsuki, Shinonome Rukia, Suzaka Kyo. Team seven: Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto. Team eight: Haruno Sakura, Inuzuka Kiba, Uchiha Sasuke. Team nine: Isayama Usui, Shibata Asano, Takumi Misaki. Team ten: Akimichi Chouji, Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino. That is all," Iruka read from his paper before looking up at the assembled new genin.

The new genin who may or may not actually get their full genin rank.

"Your team leaders will come to this room to collect you some time during the day. They will call the team they have been assigned. I cannot tell you who your assigned jounin sensei will be, as I do not know. That is a matter between the Hokage and the jounin until you have started going on missions. Please remember to be respectful of whoever your jounin sensei may be," Iruka finished, and with a nod, left the classroom, allowing for the new genin to mingle and arrange themselves to sit with their new assigned teams more cohesively.

Team seven happened to all be sitting along the same bench, so they didn't have any shuffling or shifting that they really needed to do. Other teams had members nearby on a different bench or further away. All the same, team seven did some shifting.

Naruto, who had been between Shino and Hinata, stood up and turned to face the girl on their team.

"Trade seats with me Hyuuga-san?" Naruto asked.

"W-why?" Hinata questioned nervously, even as she complied, a blush on her face.

"Because Naruto and I already know each other very well, and as we are now a team, it would do well for us to get to know you as well. You can also ask both of us questions and get to know us better if you are between us, rather than having to lean around Naruto to be able to talk with me," Shino answered. "We can also help each other better if we know where our team mates will need more help and when they will need less."

Naruto nodded in agreement from Hinata's other side as he slid into what had been Hinata's seat.

Hinata smiled shyly, but hopefully, at the two boys now on either side of her.

"For example," Naruto said, intending to lead the conversation when it became clear that the girl really was _very_ shy. "I'm really good at sneaking in and out of places, and I understand what a seal will do, but when we started I needed a lot of help from Shino to understand the things Iruka-sensei would write on the board, because I couldn't read."

"I have a solid attack, but I avoid rather than defend," Shino supplied.

Hinata pushed the tips of her pointer fingers together and looked down. "I'm weak," she said. "I'm not very good at the family style, and my byakugan isn't as powerful as Neji-nii-san's."

Shino and Naruto frowned at this, having both seen Hinata in the sparring ring during taijutsu training. She wiped the floor with the girls she sparred against – when she got serious anyway. Though not previously friends with the girl, they were aware that she was generally on the outskirts of social interactions, as they had been themselves.

"All strength is worked for, Hyuuga-san," Naruto pointed out. "I'm sure we can help make you stronger."

Shino let out a small 'ha' – just one, and it was very quiet so that his team mates might have missed it. "Naruto enjoys being beaten in the name of making his friends stronger," Shino said.

Naruto grinned. "You do the same for me," he pointed out, then looked back to Hinata. "But yeah, I heal really fast, so I don't mind it when Shino's dad says he needs to practice against an opponent rather than a log. Don't you think about being weak any more Hyuuga-san!" Naruto said in a slightly forceful, if still moderate tone. "We'll help make you the strongest Hyuuga in Konohagakure."

Hinata blinked in wide-eyed wonder at this proclamation. "I-is that e-even p-possible?" she asked quietly.

"Of course it is," Shino said bluntly. "It will take time, hard work, and determination to succeed, but it _is_ possible." Normally, he would have added a bug reference to reinforce what he was saying, but Naruto had taught him that such things weren't needed. The blonde found them interesting, certainly, but it was just extra words sometimes.

The conversation continued for some time, discussing possible training plans and learning all about the Hyuuga bloodline and fighting style – and the boys eventually calling Hinata by her first name, as well as her returning the gesture. The classroom slowly cleared of all the other teams until it was just the three of them. Shino explained to Hinata about his bugs and _his_ family's fighting style, information that Naruto already knew but was always happy to hear again.

They talked about the experiments that Naruto had been conducting with the basic three Academy techniques – ever since the first time he'd over-loaded the henge by mistake and made it _solid_ rather than just an illusion, he'd been trying to make a solid bunshin that would deceive an enemy, and do the replacement technique without the smoke and further distances or to a location that he couldn't necessarily see, or to some_one_ rather than some_where_, or switching with a person rather than a thing.

The kawarimi practice was coming along, but the bunshin was a bit harder. He could make the bunshin more solid by using something to make it from, but a solid bunshin out of just chakra... well, his first attempt had just been to over-load the technique as with the henge, but that just made the bunshin useless and it didn't even look right. On the quiet, Naruto was planning to sneak into the Hokage's library of scrolls and see if there was anything he could use. After all, a lot of techniques got labelled 'forbidden' because they used so much chakra that it killed the person trying to do it. A problem Naruto wasn't going to have any time soon.

"Naruto, there's something else you should tell Hinata while it's just the three of us," Shino said. It had been two hours since the last team had left, and it didn't look like their jounin sensei would be arriving any time soon.

Naruto steeled himself, but nodded.

"What?" Hinata asked, curious.

"Shino and I have something in common," Naruto began, laying a hand over his olive-green jacket – over where the seal on his stomach was hidden. "Only, Shino's got bugs and I've got something else."

Hinata cocked her head curiously. She hadn't twitched when Shino called out a few bugs. She was sure she wasn't going to have a problem with whatever Naruto had inside him.

"Do you remember the history lesson about the Yondaime?" Naruto asked suddenly, apparently changing the topic.

Hinata blinked, but nodded. "He was a great seal master, believed in never leaving a comrade behind, and he killed the kyuubi no yoko."

Naruto chuckled dryly and humourlessly. "Two out of three," he said. "After all, the famed fox was made of pure chakra, and you can't _kill_ chakra."

Hinata's eyes went wide. "Then what happened?" she asked. "And how do you know?"

"I know, because the Yondaime sealed her in me," Naruto answered. "The Sandaime made it a law that no one can talk about it except for me, since it really is only my business I suppose, but you can keep the secret, can't you Hinata?"

"Of course Naruto-kun," Hinata answered solemnly. "You're my team mate, and I will do my best for you and Shino-kun, that means keeping your secrets too."

Naruto and Shino smiled at the timid girl. A few solid hours of talking with her about all sorts of plans to make her stronger, and then telling her all about themselves in exchange for learning about her, had really brought her out of her shell. Around them at least.

Conversation moved on to preferred lunches – and Hinata got a bit of a shock when Naruto mentioned how tasty squirrel was, particularly when Shino agreed – and all thoughts of the fox were dropped on the assurance that most of Naruto's non-Academy skills had been taught to him by Yoko (the name was also explained), as well as a bunch of his regular Academy skills being properly refined thanks to help from Yoko and Shino rather than the teachers. Passed through hopes for the future, dreams, and passions – Hinata apparently was much more interested in healing than harming, which was why her family thought her weak. They were just discussing options for ranged fighting, since none of them specifically were long-range fighters, when the man who was most likely their jounin-sensei arrived.

"Are you team seven?" the man asked.

"We are," Naruto confirmed. "Are you our jounin-sensei?" he asked, making sure.

The man nodded and pulled up a seat. "Well, since we have the room all to ourselves, let's have our meeting here."

Naruto smiled. "You're behind the times sensei. We've been having a team meeting since we were assigned together."

The man nodded appreciatively. "This will be brief," he said. "My name is Hatake Kakashi, I'm your assigned jounin-sensei. For now. Tomorrow you will have a test with me to see if you are truly worthy of those headbands that the Academy awarded you with."

"W-what s-s-sort of t-test, Hatake-sensei?" Hinata asked.

The silver-haired man's single visible eye softened slightly for the nervous girl. He was a hard man, not a needlessly cruel one. "You can call me Kakashi-sensei," he told her. "And it's a survival test. All the genin teams have a test like this, and usually these tests are passed down from jounin to genin. For example, the test given to the Hokage when he was a genin is the same test he later gave his own genin team. Understand?"

Hinata nodded. "Thank you Kakashi-sensei."

"I warn you all though, my team mates threw up after our genin test. The only reason I didn't is because I didn't eat breakfast," Kakashi cautioned. "Other ninja have similar stories of their genin tests."

Team seven nodded in understanding.

"One more thing," Kakashi said. "I was only told 'team seven', I don't know your names but you all know mine. From left -" he pointed to Shino, "- to right?" he suggested, waving his hand across Hinata and Naruto.

"Aburame Shino."

"Hyuuga Hinata."

"Uzumaki Naruto."

Kakashi chuckled behind his cloth mask. "And alphabetical order as well," he noted. "Right. I will see you all tomorrow at training ground seven, please assemble at five am with all of your ninja gear. Dismissed," he declared with a nod, then turned for the door.

"Five in the morning?" Hinata questioned. "That's too early for breakfast anyway."

Naruto chuckled and shook his head. "If it's so bad that we're going to throw up, I'd rather have something _to_ throw up than dry heave," he countered. "I've had that feeling, and it's not nice. You can wash out the bad flavour with water, but if you don't actually throw up you just feel bad for longer. Besides, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, it kick-starts your metabolism."

Shino nodded. "This is logical. For now however, it is late in the afternoon. Our best course of action would be to ready our equipment now and get to sleep early. Whatever we must do, being properly rested can only aid us."

Hinata and Naruto both nodded, and all three of them rose from their seats and headed for the door.

"I'll come and fetch you Naruto, since you have no clock to wake you so early," Shino offered once they'd already said goodbye to Hinata.

"Thanks Shino," Naruto answered with a grin. "I appreciate that. The sun just isn't up that early this time of year."

Shino nodded and they parted ways as well.

~oOo~

Naruto collected mushrooms and berries along the way to the training ground, and ate them as he walked. It wasn't the best for his digestion, he knew that, but he figured he'd sit for a little while when they got to the training ground.

Hinata arrived at the same time as he and Shino, and Naruto offered the extra berries he had been carrying to the girl (Shino had eaten some along the way as well) before sitting down.

"Alright," Naruto proclaimed. "Step one of the 'Make Hinata Awesome' plan will commence now."

Hinata blinked in surprise. "But..."

Shino shook his head, cutting her off. "Step one is: train in _every_ available moment. We have an available moment now. Naruto must digest his breakfast, so he will watch at first. You can move on to hitting him later, and healing _after_ you have learned to hurt more confidently. The fight must be finished before aid can be given."

Naruto nodded, not taking any offence at the idea that he would be Hinata's target.

"Show us your basic forms," Shino instructed.

Hinata did as instructed, taking the first stance in the line of her family's style, and thrusting her palm out in a strike.

Shino asked her to repeat the movement, but this time with her hand closed in a fist.

"Huh?" Hinata asked. "But the Jyuuken style is always palm-strikes or finger jabs so that we can send our chakra into the opponent to close their tenketsu or damage their internal organs."

"I see no logical reason for you to not cause external damage at the same time as internal damage," Shino countered firmly. "You can still channel your chakra through your hands this way, can't you?"

Hinata nodded, a little hesitatingly, but it was a confirmation all the same. "And I know Neji-nii-san can channel his chakra through any part of his body."

"That's something to work towards," Naruto quipped from the sidelines.

Shino nodded his agreement. "But for now," he said. "Punch."

Team seven spent the five hours following combining the Academy basic style with the Hyuuga forms, and trading blows among the three of them. Hinata had always been able to land a punch on her opponent in class after all, and it _always_ hurt – whether she was channelling chakra into it or not. They also practised making traps around the training ground when they needed a break from the more physical activity of pounding each other. So when Kakashi finally arrived – very, _very_ late – team seven felt that they'd had a productive morning, even if they _were_ all slightly miffed with the man.

None of them made comment, but all were _quite_ glad they'd eaten breakfast. Particularly once Kakashi had explained his test, and that anyone failing would not get lunch while he ate in front of them.

Their first course of action was to split up, disappear, and regroup further away – they had to form a plan after all. All the practice traps were about to come in useful.

The 'survival test' had begun at twenty minutes past eleven. At five minutes to twelve – the cut-off time for the test – the game had changed from 'retrieve the bells' to 'keep away', with the three genin passing both bells between all three of them while Kakashi tried to get them back. Naruto was the one who'd announced this change to their sensei between catching the bells from Shino and tossing them high for Hinata to catch.

When the alarm sounded, Kakashi was actually laughing as he congratulated them on being the first genin team he had ever passed, and more importantly congratulated them on their excellent team work and mentality, as well as their clever planning and use of traps. Lunches were handed around and all four of them sat down to eat and learn just a little bit about the man who was tasked with supervising them.

Meals eaten, Kakashi collected back his bento boxes from his students – even Naruto had eaten from one, since he had some practice with normal people's eating habits thanks to Shino – stood, and dusted the grass off his trousers.

"Well, I think that's enough for the day," he said. "So if you will all excuse me now -"

"No," Naruto interrupted quite firmly. "We won't."

Kakashi's single visible eye closed and opened a couple of times, as though surprised.

"You are our sensei, currently your only duty is to see to our training and advancement. The Hokage wouldn't have given you any other assignments, and helping _us_ train shouldn't hamper your _own_ training," Shino supplied. "Therefore, you can have no legitimate excuse to leave us on our own after a forty-minute test in the middle of the day after requesting _us_ to be here at five in the morning and not showing up on time yourself."

"Also," Naruto continued. "Though we made excellent use of the approximate five hours we were waiting for you this morning, we do not appreciate such a level of un-professionalism as you have so far displayed to us. We are the future of Konoha's fighting force, and by not giving us the training we _deserve_ as _your students_, you are hampering not only our personal growth but also potentially weakening Konoha as a whole."

Kakashi was beginning to look nervous – if his one visible eye was anything to go by – from this rather severe talking-to his was getting from his new genin.

"Not to mention," Hinata said softly, "if we are not given training we will continue to be weak, continue to be _seen_ as weak, and that would reflect back on _you_, Kakashi-sensei. It would be like a smear on your reputation."

Kakashi sagged where he stood and slumped to the ground. "Alright, you win," he said tiredly. "Training it is, _but_," he added firmly. "Since you argued your case so well, I _will_ be driving you into the ground with all the training you'll be getting. Is that clear?"

"Yes Sensei!" was the resolute answer chorused back to him by all three of the genin.

~oOo~

Kakashi started his students on chakra control. He had them walking up trees, walking on water, and even air – it couldn't _actually_ be walked on, but speed and extreme chakra control could give the appearance of bouncing off of nothingness. Once he was satisfied with their chakra control – something that took the better part of three weeks – the physical training kicked in.

'Kicked' being somewhat literal in fact.

Hinata's family style was combined with the style taught to Kakashi and his self-proclaimed rival, Maito Gai, back when they were young and _both_ enjoyed trying to beat the other up. It was initially less elegant, but it was much more damaging. A month of training and Hinata was adding in original moves which, combined with the other two styles, made it look like she was dancing rather than training in a deadly art. At least, while she was practising on an imagined opponent. When she had a real one, it was blatantly painful every time she landed a hit – and only Kakashi managed to avoid these hits completely, though by the time she had become properly confident in her new style of fighting he needed his sharingan to continue in this feat.

Shino had already been something of a master of the Academy basic forms. He was solid, he was precise, he was efficient. Kakashi's training made him powerful and potentially deadly. Then there was the variations of the regular forms that Shino used when employing his bugs in an offensive or defensive manoeuvre. Since he used his bugs more from a distance than in close combat, Kakashi focused on making sure that Shino was able to maintain a secure and stable footing while dodging other ranged attacks – of many and various types, some of which were even designed specifically to disable a bug user or a group of ninja, which is effectively what Shino was.

Naruto was the heavy hitter, officially. He could be in the thick of the fight and continue to stand up again, pounding after arse-whooping after potentially-fatal close-encounter. Naruto was also the member of the team that Kakashi trained most heavily in weapons. How to use them up close, how to use them from a distance, how to manipulate them after throwing them, and how to know _which_ weapon was the best one for a given situation. Of course, Hinata and Shino were both trained in mid- to long-range weapons as well, since they needed these areas covered as well as their regular up-close fighting if they didn't want to have too many exploitable weaknesses. Naruto was the one who could potentially clank when he moved though. Thankfully, sealing scrolls took care of that problem. Kakashi also, quietly, helped Naruto with his bunshin experiment by teaching him the kage bunshin. Ultimately, this technique meant that Kakashi could drill Naruto mercilessly in the use of lots of different weapons at the same time, since the knowledge of a kage bunshin returned to its maker upon being dispersed.

The kage bunshin was the first ninjutsu that Kakashi taught since being assigned team seven. After that, he moved through each and every element, teaching all three of his genin the most basic ninjutsu associated with all of the elements. Once they'd mastered those, he moved up to the next level – but not before _every_ basic ninjutsu had been mastered by _all three_ of them. Working together to help each other improve was good teamwork. They were kids still after all, even if they were legally adults from the moment they accepted their forehead protectors. They wanted to learn the cool ninjutsu.

Missions were conducted once a day. D-rank of course, but they were ninja that were paid by the mission; unlike the nin who taught at the Academy, worked the mission desk, the med-nin in the hospital, or those who rotated on permanent guard duty, no, _those_ nin were paid by the hour. It evened out, sort of. A single high ranking mission could comfortably set up a good ninja for a few months, while D-rank mission-pay lasted a week or two depending on how much of a penny-pincher the nin was. They were plentiful though, so that wasn't a problem. The chuunin who got paid a flat rate by the hour, on the other hand, didn't have to worry about high-risk situations and got a steady mid- to low-C-rank pay every two weeks. Not opulence, and of course the jounin and special-jounin who worked in the more... shaded areas of Konoha's security got a slightly higher pay than the regular chunin in their much lower-risk jobs.

So the missions that team seven took were over quickly in order to return to training sooner, and – apart from catching Tora – barely used any of their ninja skills. Pulling weeds made the muscles burn a little, but not much by comparison to their extensive physical training.

Then Kakashi sprung something new on his team: a survival exam. This was run very much like the original bell test he had given them, but he didn't just order them to try and capture or kill him. He told them that he was going to attempt to kill them as well.

"What?" Naruto yelped.

Kakashi laughed. "Kidding," he said. "I will be attacking you with paint and a genjutsu that will simulate the feeling of pain without causing the physical damage to your bodies." Genjutsu was something that Kakashi hadn't started in on really teaching them yet, so the genjutsu would remain and hamper them appropriately during the test. "This is going to be a test to see how far you have come in the past couple of months. Now, begin!"

When the survival exam was declared over, Hinata only had paint in her hair and on the edges of her clothes, Shino had splatters of paint that had landed on him after he dodged a paint-bomb and a much more colourful swarm, and Naruto had some paint on his cheeks, knuckles, and weapons, but was generally more covered with grass-stains. Kakashi was wrapped up like a spider's dinner.

"Congratulations!" he said, his visible eye upturned happily. "I now declare you ready for a C-rank mission!"

Naruto cheered, Hinata clapped happily, beaming, and Shino smiled (just a little smugly) in satisfaction.

The mission was escorting a man by the name of Tazuna to Wave Country, where he was building a bridge. It was outside of the village walls, which was nice. The man, however, was a drunk. Not so nice.

"Hey a puddle!" Naruto said, grinning as he pointed ahead of them. "I haven't jumped in a puddle since making genin. Permission to splash, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi managed to express scepticism at the need to grant the request simply by tilting his head and raising his one half-visible eyebrow.

"Aw, come on Kakashi-sensei, it's a perfect day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the puddle is all smooth and blue and _perfect_. It's not going to slow down the mission if I jump in it when we reach it."

The observations that Naruto made of the puddle registered with his team as 'the puddle is suspicious' and 'if it's a trap then Naruto really is the best one to trigger it'.

Kakashi sighed in a put-upon way. "Alright Naruto," he allowed. "But no slowing down just to splash more."

Tazuna grumbled about being protected by little kids again. He'd made the complaint when team seven had been assigned to him, but Kakashi had assured the man that he wouldn't permit his 'cute little genin' to take a C-rank mission if he didn't think they were ready for it. A comment which had reassured Iruka as well, who had been about to object to giving his ex-students anything more strenuous than catching Tora again. Kakashi did have a reputation after all, and it was whispered on the rumour mill that, not only was this team of genin the first he had _ever_ passed, but that he trained them all relentlessly.

For his part, Naruto cheered and when they were closer to the suspicious puddle, ran a couple of steps before jumping and landing with both feet in the water. This created a bit of a splash, but more importantly it caused two groans to sound.

Naruto dashed away from the puddle in time to be ready for an attack launched by the two rogue ninja who had been somehow hiding in the half-inch-deep puddle. That the two ninja appeared from the puddle clutching at their groins rather than in attack formation raised a few eyebrows.

"Naruto, tell me you didn't do that on purpose," Kakashi said.

"Of course I did Kakashi-sensei! I know every man's weakness, same as you, and they're clearly up to no good or they wouldn't be hiding in a puddle. I figured it would be easier to incapacitate first, and ask questions later," the boy answered, smiling just a little bit.

Hinata blushed and Shino snorted in amusement before sending a few of his kikai to start eating at the two nin's chakra and wrapping wires around them. Hinata caught on quickly and was tapping pressure points before either of the nin began to properly begin resisting their restraints.

"You fight dirty," Kakashi observed.

"Ninja," Naruto answered, pointing to himself. "Not samurai."

Kakashi chuckled and sighed, shaking his head in amusement at the very valid point, then went to slap their captives about a little bit and get some answers. Having _gotten_ those answers, he turned a very blatantly unhappy eye on their client – who babbled terrified excuses and apologies and even told them about how they were all losing hope since a man called Kaiza was killed by Gato as an example of what happened to all who resisted him.

"Verdict?" Kakashi asked, turning to his team.

"We already accepted the mission Kakashi-sensei, and knew that we would be escorting and defending the client," Hinata pointed out.

Naruto nodded with a shrug. "So our information was wrong about what to expect in the way of what he needed defending against. Wouldn't be the first time a mistake like that got made. Konoha isn't the kind of village to just abandon a mission because something unexpected came up. We've got a reputation to protect after all."

Kakashi chuckled slightly. Again, Naruto had a point. "Shino? What do you think?"

"The mission has moved from C-rank to at least B. This is irregular but not something that we cannot compensate for -"

"Double-negative," Naruto quipped.

"Deliberate," Shino countered. "The only issue was that Tazuna-san claims he cannot pay the difference. Perhaps this could be made up by him offering to do an architectural project for Konoha at a slightly reduced price at some later date. Also, we should store our captives in a scroll so that they cannot escape and cause trouble later. This will also allow us to collect bounties later if they have them."

Kakashi nodded and straightened his back. "Alright my cute genin, you make a good case. Now, come and stand around these two and I'll give you a quick lesson on how to write prisoner-capture seals. They're different to regular storage seals, since you also have to make sure that whoever you are sealing up will still be alive when you get them out again."

A fun-filled five minute lesson later, and they were on the move again, Hinata and Naruto on point, Shino walking beside Tazuna, and Kakashi occupying the rear-guard. All of them attentively vigilant. Hinata's byakugan was active, a fact hidden by a genjutsu that Kakashi had placed, scanning the world around her for any threats. Naruto was employing a trick taught to him by his passenger – pumping a little extra chakra to his nose and ears, sharpening his sense of smell and hearing, on the alert for something out of place. Shino's bugs were on patrol and reporting back to him regularly. Kakashi pretended to read his book as he walked.

None of them _looked_ like they were any more on the look out for danger than they had been prior to capturing the two nin who had been hiding in the puddle, well, not _much_ anyway. It would have been suspicious of them to be _totally_ unaffected by the minor altercation after all.

They weren't long off the boat on the other side of the stretch of water that Tazuna was attempting to bridge when Naruto threw a kunai into a bush that had shifted in a way that suggested occupation by a living creature.

"Naruto?" Kakashi asked, wondering why he was throwing weapons around. He hadn't sensed a chakra signature.

Naruto went to the bush and returned with a rabbit. His kunai was through its side, bloodying its white fur. Its _unseasonally_ white fur.

"Dinner," the boy announced, pleased and perfectly aware that it had to be somebody's pet.

Hinata looked around at Shino and Kakashi, dispelling the genjutsu over her eyes before releasing her byakugan. The signal that some_one_ had been spotted, not just the rabbit. It was extra warning, since they both knew that Naruto could skewer a rabbit through the poor little creature's tiny little brain with a senbon as long as the animal was in sight.

Someone had switched with the rabbit to avoid the kunai hit.

Shino pushed Tazuna to the ground while the rest of team seven ducked – just in time to avoid being cleaved through by the giant sword that came spinning dangerously through. It was at such a level as to remove genin heads from shoulders and gut grown men. This would have been _very bad_, since Hinata hadn't been taught much healing yet. Only what she read about the medicinal properties of certain plants before going to bed each night. That wouldn't re-attach heads or mend torsos.

When they were up again, Naruto made a comment that may have gotten him killed if their opponent had heard it.

"Okay, it may be the kind of sword that just _screams_ 'I am compensating for something', but it's still cool and I _want_ it."

Hinata and Kakashi chuckled, and Shino snorted in amusement.

"Well if you can get it off him Naruto," Kakashi said. "But that's a rogue _jounin_ from Mist, famous for slaughtering one-hundred of his classmates for his genin exam." Secondary message: you guys won't be fighting him unless you can see a perfect opening or I'm in trouble.

"Glad I'm not a Mist nin then," Naruto answered, absently gutting the rabbit he was still holding. He'd deal with removing the fur later. "That doesn't sound like a fun exam."

~oOo~

When Inari – Tazuna's grandson – started to scream at them about trying to be heroes and getting themselves killed, Shino poked the child's forehead, a little bit sharply, but it got the boy to stop.

"Everybody dies Inari-kun," Hinata said gently.

"Training to get stronger, to better protect people, to stop the bad-guys, is how you put off your own death," Naruto added, disguising what ninja really did in a silk-and-velvet mask so as to inspire the child to not be so scared all the time.

"Gato isn't one of the Biju," Shino added. "He can be killed easily enough."

"That isn't part of our contract," Kakashi reminded his team softly. He didn't want to discourage the boy either, but neither could he just let his genin do as they pleased on their first mission outside of the village walls. "Assassinations are more expensive than this town can afford right now."

"And if Konoha took over Gato's legitimate businesses?" Shino suggested, just as quietly.

Naruto snorted, and said at his usual volume: "I bet Gato would even try to get out of paying his mercenaries if he could, and if they found _that_ out, he _really_ wouldn't live long."

Hinata smiled. "That's right," she said. "Gato doesn't actually kill people himself after all. He orders others to do it. Economically, he's powerful. Physically, he is very weak."

In the following week, Naruto became a one-man labour-force working to complete the bridge (based on the logic of 'the sooner the bridge is finished, the sooner we go home again'), Shino sent his bugs after Zabuza and his cohort who had escaped them and found Gato's residence full of mercenaries, and Hinata learned more about medicinal practices and healing. Oh, and all three of them trained hard under Kakashi's supervision. Naruto in particular trained so that he would be able to use Zabuza's sword as easily as the man himself had, since he _had_ managed to snatch it during their little confrontation.

Zabuza and his... assistant? Apprentice? Accomplice?... well, the two Mist nin showed up at the end of that week, just as Naruto dispelled his last clone, the bridge finally finished.

It was Naruto trapped in a dome of ice mirrors while Hinata and Shino attacked it from the outside, Shino also standing guard over Tazuna, while Kakashi fought against Zabuza – a task much easier since the man was without his giant cleaver.

"You know, this fight is getting boring," Naruto declared loudly from where he was in the middle of the ice-mirror-dome-thing, then brought his hands together in a seal. A large _poof_ of chakra later, and there were fifty Naruto's standing there.

Haku started throwing senbon at all of them, dispersing the chakra constructs rapidly.

Surprisingly though, when there was only one Naruto left, he _also_ dispersed when Haku sent a barrage of senbon at him.

Naruto was no longer inside the ice prison.

The boy released his henge a few feet away from where Hinata was disabling the chakra in one of the mirrors.

"You can stop now Hinata," Naruto said with an easy smile. "Thanks for all the help though, you too Shino. I think we really wore the guy out."

"Not to mention kept him occupied while Zabuza was dealt with," Shino added, nodding in acceptance of the gratitude from his friend.

"How did you get out?" Tazuna asked, wide-eyed. "Didn't those guys say it was an inescapable prison?"

All three of the genin snorted in derision.

"There is no prison that cannot be escaped," Shino said firmly.

Naruto smirked. "It's just a matter of figuring out how."

Hinata nodded, but her byakugan was still activated and here eyes were still on the mirrors. Suddenly, she jabbed with her left fist and shattered the mirror in front of her. Haku sailed out of it and into the middle of his own jutsu. Of course, since it _was his_, he wouldn't have any problems getting out. On the other hand, thanks to Hinata's punch, he would probably have a few problems getting _up_ for a while.

Or he would have, if Gato hadn't shown up and started bad-mouthing the recently deceased Zabuza. Haku moved with the speed of furious adrenaline to behead the odious man. Behind him, the genin applauded politely for an attack excellently performed, and Naruto carried the exhausted older boy back to Tazuna's house, despite his protesting that he no longer had a purpose in life since Zabuza was dead.

It was suggested that Haku could find a purpose in protecting the people of Wave, in taking care of Inari, or in returning to Konoha and becoming a ninja there – since he wasn't an official Mist ninja, that wouldn't be the political problem it could have been.

Haku decided to stay in Wave and be a guard against bandits, particularly guarding on the bridge where Zabuza's ashes had been installed in a stone jar. He had died on the bridge, now he was part of it, and Haku would guard it for the rest of his life.


	2. Chapter 2

"Halt!" Kakashi ordered sharply.

They'd been back in Konoha for a week, and were training again. At Kakashi's word though, all three of them froze in place. This looked awkward, since Naruto had been bringing Zabuza's sword around in a horizontal cut, which Shino had moved to hand-flip over – meaning Shino was doing a one-handed hand-stand on Naruto's sword, adding his weight to it – while Hinata had bent so far backwards beneath it that her head touched the ground to let it go over her. None of them were exactly comfortable, but they were all holding perfectly still.

Kakashi sometimes called halts like this to force their muscles to burn a little more, working them a little harder and in new ways. These were also training them to freeze perfectly so as not to give away their own movement to a sighted enemy or target.

"Break and assemble," Kakashi said after a moment of studying how well they were holding up.

Naruto finished the sweep of his sword and then sealed it away in the tattoo he'd gotten for it. Shino completed his flip, landing between Naruto and Hinata, who was standing straight again. All three of them turned to Kakashi with a salute, snapping their heels together and standing at attention.

"The call just went out for jounin sensei to assemble," Kakashi informed them, pointing to a red hawk that was circling above them.

Naruto, Shino and Hinata looked up, cementing the image of that bird in their minds, then looked back to Kakashi – who nodded in approval.

"You will all conduct yourselves in an orderly fashion, and keep an eye out for teams from other villages. They are here for the chuunin exam, so they _should_ be tougher than regular genin. Only the host village of a chuunin exam sends in more than just their best chances for impressing the competition or passing," Kakashi explained. "I will be nominating you at the meeting I am about to attend, though of course it is your choice to accept my nomination or not."

"Thank you for your faith in us Kakashi-sensei," Hinata said, beaming with pride.

"We will do you proud," Shino added.

"Iruka-sensei will have a fit though," Naruto added thoughtfully, before shaking his head. "It will be our honour and pleasure to represent Konoha in this exam."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Honour? I thought you _weren't_ a samurai?" he quipped.

"Ah," Naruto sighed as Kakashi and his team mates chuckled at him. "This is an exam, not a mission."

"You'd do well to treat it like a mission though," Kakashi said firmly. "That's all for now. You are dismissed from training, go and review your medical texts."

Since the Wave mission, Kakashi had upped the amount of medical learning his genin received. Hinata was most enthusiastic about this kind of learning – after all, she _wanted_ to be a healer more than a killer – but the boys were just as keen to understand how the body worked. If they were in a situation where there was no medic available or the medic was injured, then they needed to know how to take care of themselves. Knowing all that stuff was useful for taking life as well as saving it though, so not one of them slacked off.

~oOo~

Team seven were relaxing high in one of the many trees scattered throughout Konoha, reading through their texts, when they heard the commotion going on below them.

Two members of team eight, the Sandaime's grandson Konohamaru, and a couple of Suna genin seemed to be wrapped up in some kind of mild altercation. The third member of team eight, the Uchiha, had been sulking below them for the past half-hour – completely unaware of their presence in the higher branches. He appeared to be just as oblivious of the third Suna genin between him and team seven.

"Credit where it's due," Hinata said quietly, "at least he's aware of what's going on _below_ him."

Shino nodded silently, and Naruto shook his head – agreeing, but disgusted with his old classmate. Just because they were all dressed in variants of brown, mottled green, and 'shadow grey' was _not_ an excuse to go completely unnoticed when they weren't actively hiding. Naruto's bright blonde hair was a foot long after the tie he used to keep it out of his face, that at _least_ should have been noticeable.

When the Suna nin pulled back an arm to start hitting the kid, Sasuke threw a pebble at the hand holding up Konohamaru, and then crushed another in his hand once he had everybody's attention. Being all macho and tough.

Team seven were more interested in the way those bandages just floated around the black-clad genin, especially considering the way he'd twitched his hand right before Kiba fell on his arse mid-charge to save the kid. The girl with him saying "you're not going to use Karasu?" was also a hint. Puppet user. They _did_ study extensively after all.

Then the red-head announced himself with an order to stop.

Apart from team eight, and Konohamaru, team seven now knew the names Karasu, Kankurou and Gaara. And the show wasn't over yet. There was the blatant power-play within the team – both of the older two were afraid of Gaara, who was smaller and younger than them – and then Sasuke demanded to know Gaara's name.

Idiot probably hadn't even heard Kankurou saying it, _twice_.

"Well, _I'm_ interested to know your name," Naruto called, drawing attention to himself, his eyes clearly fixed on the girl.

Now everybody was staring at team seven, and wondering where the hell they'd come from and when.

Shino nodded. "After all, we already heard that _he_ is Kankurou," he said, pointing to the boy with paint on his face, "and that the thing on his back is called Karasu, and of course Gaara. Not knowing _your_ name would be a gap in our knowledge."

"Oi! When did you three get up there?" Kiba demanded.

Hinata chuckled. "We were up here the whole time," she said. "But those three arrived after Sarutobi-chan started yelling," she added, pointing to a tree a little further out where three people wearing headbands with musical notes were watching.

"You were very loud and attracted _quite_ the audience," Naruto pointed out. "So, your name Miss?"

"Temari," she answered. "What about you and your team mates?"

"I'm Naruto, these are Shino and Hinata."

"You three are also interesting," Gaara said. "We will face you in the chuunin exams."

~oOo~

While Kiba entered the room loudly, and Ino squealed as she glomped onto Sasuke, team seven sat quietly at a table further into the room. Hinata had spotted her cousin Neji, a person who she'd had little contact with since becoming genin. She was always out training or performing a mission, he was always out training or performing a mission, they lived in separate parts of the estate and Hinata was more inclined to just fall into bed at the end of the day than socialise with her family.

"Hello Neji-nii-san," she greeted politely.

"Hinata-sama," he answered, more coldly.

"These are my team mates, Aburame Shino and Uzumaki Naruto. Who are your team mates?" Hinata asked, still smiling despite Neji's coldness.

"Rock Lee and Tenten," he supplied after a moment.

Hinata smiled brightly and turned to Tenten. "I'm so pleased to meet you! Could you tell me about how it is to train with my cousin?"

"Eh? Don't you know?" Tenten asked, surprised.

Hinata shook her head. "I train with my team mates and my sensei so much that I am rarely at the family estate, and barely have the energy to greet my little sister before falling into bed, and her room is next to mine. Neji-nii-san's room is on the other side of the estate," Hinata explained, a frown on her face. "Perhaps after the exam, you will help me train, Neji-nii-san?" Hinata asked hopefully.

"Perhaps, Hinata-sama," Neji answered, though he clearly wasn't enthusiastic about the idea.

Hinata beamed in answer before turning back to Tenten. "So, do these two boys push you as hard as my own team mates push me?"

Naruto sat down beside Lee. "So, why the green jumpsuit and orange leg warmers?"

Lee smiled in answer. "Gifts from Gai-sensei," he answered. "The leg warmers hide weights that I wear all the time for resistance training."

Naruto nodded. "I had to do some weight training for a while, when I got this really big weapon that I could hardly lift. I don't wear weights all the time though, I'd have to re-adjust myself to not having them in a fight, and I'm not sure I could do that."

Lee nodded. "It does make a difference," he agreed.

"Hinata speaks highly of you, Hyuuga-san," Shino said. "When she speaks of her family at all, it is of you or her younger sister. It seems the two of you are the only Hyuugas that Hinata cares for, and she speaks more of you than of Hanabi-san."

Neji's jaw fell slightly in surprise.

Shino was stretching the truth a little bit. Hinata didn't speak of her family at all beyond the expectations of their style any more, but when team seven had been formed she had spoken more of Neji and Hanabi than any other family member, even her father, and she only spoke of those two as though she truly cared for them. Certainly she wished her father cared for her, but had long resigned herself to the idea that he wouldn't, perhaps even couldn't. She had given up on her father, disliked the elders intensely, and was shy around the rest of the Branch Family ever since her uncle had been given over to die in her father's place because of another village's attempted kidnapping of her.

Team seven were all very well aware that, despite their wealth and their position in Konoha, the Hyuuga compound was no paradise.

Delicately, Shino closed Neji's mouth and sat down beside him, then turned to watch his year-mates making a fuss with an older Konoha genin dressed in purple and the genin from Oto until the proctors for the first part of the exam arrived.

~oOo~

While team seven waited for the proctors to start actually giving them instructions for the second part of the exam (the first part had been easy: cheat, bluff, pass), they had themselves a little conference. Weapons were checked over – they'd all come fully stocked, since they'd had no idea what they were really letting themselves in for – and Shino re-confirmed that he had a kikai on Gaara. They wanted to know where the boy was at all times, so that they could avoid him.

Naruto had told them that Yoko recognised the aura of 'one of her kin' from the boy. That meant a chakra monster in the form of a trapped tailed beast, and while it was _possible_ that Gaara's passenger was as pleasant as Yoko, from the look in his eyes it was a fair bet that this was _not_ the case.

With a heaven scroll in hand, and a signal from the proctors, team seven was in the Forest of Death – and Naruto was on point.

Hinata could see everything that surrounded them, but she was assigned as lookout for other teams, while Shino would keep an eye out for bugs from the rear and Naruto dealt with the rest of the forest. His team mates carefully planted their own footsteps _exactly_ where Naruto had. Naruto was, after all, the authority on forests and surviving in them – also, by doing this it would look to any skilled tracker like just one genin rather than three had passed through, and Shino, having the largest feet of them all, would cover whatever few vague tracks left by Naruto and Hinata.

Naruto finally brought them to a halt, several hours later, on top of a river. They'd circled, doubled back, crossed the tracks of two other teams, gone over rocks, and now they were on top of running water with high rocky banks on either side.

This test wasn't just a matter of getting a scroll from another team and getting to the tower in the middle of the forest after all. The proctor had said they would have to survive in this forest for five days. They were currently just a little over a mile from the central tower, and with a gesture towards a cave that the river flowed past – Hinata checked it for other occupants and found none – they made camp.

Camp meant firewood, grass for bedding, traps enough to stop most jounin from reaching them, and finding dinner. Shino brought in the firewood and grass, Hinata set up traps, and Naruto brought in dinner. Once they'd eaten and had a drink from the river, Shino and Naruto helped Hinata set up even more traps.

They slept in shifts. Naruto took first shift. Foxes were creatures of the dusk and late hours. Hinata took the second shift, her eyes seeing better through the pitch blackness than either of her team mates. Shino took final shift, his kikai rousing him to begin the day before even the grey light that preceded the dawn became a true thing. This was how they did things, how they'd designated shifts on the trip to and from Wave.

Team seven remained at their encampment for three days, collecting scrolls from the unwary teams that fell into their traps by mistake, before another team actually deliberately found them. They had a nice, tidy little pile of both 'heaven' and 'earth' scrolls when team ten, their generation's Ino-Shika-Chou team, finally followed the tracks of other teams to team seven's camp site.

Their eyes bugged and their jaws dropped at the piles of scrolls and the rabbits that were being cooked over the fire.

"Come join us," Naruto offered, shaking his head at their expressions. "You three look like you haven't eaten properly in days."

"Or bathed, at all," Shino added.

"We haven't," Shikamaru agreed. "We got our scrolls and headed for the tower, only to be told we _had_ to be in the forest the full five days unless we were badly injured, which thankfully we're not, but that means we've been stuck out here longer than we'd like."

"How did you get all those scrolls?" Ino demanded.

"Traps," Hinata said simply. "We were going to check them again after we'd eaten. Since you're all here, we can only guess that _all_ the other traps have been sprung by someone else already."

"That's a lot of traps, and I don't think there are that many genin left in the forest," Naruto pointed out.

Shino shook his head. "Those who have lost scrolls to us may have attempted to re-take them," he pointed out.

Naruto folded his arms and closed his eyes, but eventually nodded in agreement. "Whatever, if animals have tripped the traps instead of other teams, then we'll eat well tonight. For now though, the rabbit is ready. If we'd known to expect you guys, we'd have set a couple more to cooking."

"Thank you," Chouji said, sitting down and gratefully accepting a rabbit to eat. He'd lost a _lot_ of weight over the past few days. He was still tubby, but he definitely wasn't as round as he'd used to be.

Berries, wild salad and the other two rabbits were shared by the remaining five genin.

Team ten stayed with team seven until the last days were over and they finally entered the tower, and Chouji was able to put the weight back on thanks to Naruto's expertise as a hunter. Shikamaru was forced to build a partition for Ino to be girly behind, and the girl became determined to teach Hinata how to be girly as well, but Hinata always just shook her head and excused herself to train or study with Naruto and/or Shino.

~oOo~

Of the seven teams that had made it through the second exam, only three teams were clean, and only two teams completely uninjured. The team from sand looked just as they had when they'd arrived in Konoha. Team seven were as fresh as daisies, and team ten only looked as good as they did because team seven had let them share their camp, resting and recuperating, for the last couple of days of the exam.

Some guy with glasses – who seemed to be known by team eight – decided to quit now rather than participate in the preliminary matches. It was the same guy who had been talking to them before the first exam. Team seven made a note of the guy.

"Yo," Kakashi greeted them once they'd been dismissed to the balcony to watch the first of the preliminary fights – some guy called Akado Yoroi against the self-absorbed 'last' Uchiha. "I see none of you are any worse for your little camping trip."

Team seven smiled or smirked in response.

"Do any of you have a strategy for these preliminary fights?" Kakashi asked quietly as he walked up the stairs with them.

"Go for the balls," Naruto said simply.

"Or the hair," Hinata added, nodding at Ino and the girl from Oto who both had very long hair.

"Or both," Shino finished with a tug on Naruto's long mess.

Kakashi laughed softly as Hayate – the proctor for this part of the exam – reiterated the rules for the two about to begin fighting.

After the fight – Sasuke won – the boy was taken away by his sensei Kurenai and the woman who had been the proctor for the second exam. Something to do with his shoulder from the looks of things.

"Hey, Lee-san, did you fight with or near him at all recently?" Naruto asked. They were standing next to Gai's team.

Lee nodded. "Just before the first exam," he admitted.

"Then he owes you a big, fat, thank-you note, with a whole lot of trimmings. Kakashi-sensei and your Gai-sensei are the only ones in Konoha who can teach that style of fighting at all, and Kakashi-sensei admits that his version is a bit bastardised from Maito-san's," Naruto said.

"I wonder who's stronger," Tenten said, leaning on the rail beside Hinata. "_This_ year's number one rookie, or _last_ year's number one rookie."

"That depends on how you define 'strength'," Hinata answered diplomatically. "If you mean 'bull-headed refusal to give up', then they're probably about tied. If you mean skill, then I would _hope_ that Neji-nii-san is better, since he's been a ninja for a year already."

"Now we will begin the next match," announced Hayate from the floor, drawing everybody's attention to the screen.

Team seven grinned. Zaku Abumi against Aburame Shino.

"Heh, who's the other weakling?" called one of the Oto genin.

Team seven's grins just stretched wider. Shino got to fight first, and his opponent was so confident in himself that he hadn't quit even though it looked like both of his arms had been broken.

"Fighters step up, we will now begin the second match," Hayate said.

"This one still moves somehow," Abumi said, smirking. "One arm will be enough to defeat you." So saying, he charged, swinging his arm up.

Shino blocked it solidly, leant forward a little, and brought up his knee. The whole room heard the crunch and every male (except Naruto, who did this sort of thing himself) winced to hear it and covered themselves in sympathy as the Oto genin fell, trying to cradle his abused balls in his left as he curled up into the foetal position on the floor, his right arm still in its sling against his chest. He was whimpering.

Shino brought a kunai out and held it a little above his opponent's neck, then turned his head slightly to the proctor, waiting for the verdict since Zaku was obviously not going to be fighting back in his current condition.

"It seems that this match is over. Winner, Aburame Shino," Hayated declared, perfectly neutral in voice and face.

Team seven applauded, their best 'snobbishly aloof' expressions on their faces until Shino reached the bottom of the stairs. They also dutifully ignored any comments about it being a below-the-belt hit (of course it was!) or anything like that. When Shino reached them, they'd dropped the façade and were smiling for him.

"Nice one Shino," Naruto congratulated. "Looks like he's never gonna have kids."

"Severe blunt force trauma to the male genitalia," Hinata cooed. "Possibly even a broken pelvis from the crack."

"Very... brutal," Kakashi said delicately. "When you three said you had such a plan, I had hoped you were joking."

"Kakashi-sensei, this is the preliminary round, why should we give away anything that we can do to the people who will be our opponents in the third stage and may later be our enemies in the field?" Shino explained. "This is much easier."

Kakashi nodded in resigned acceptance of this.

"I expect similar results from both of you," Shino told his team mates.

Naruto and Hinata nodded, a slightly vicious glint in their eyes, before they turned to see who would be fighting next. The names Tsurugi Misumi and Kankurou appeared on the screen.

"Maybe we'll get to see this 'Karasu' that he almost used in the middle of the street," Hinata murmured. "I think I would like that."

Her team mates nodded, though Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the comment, since he hadn't heard of this meeting.

"You know what?" Naruto said absently while the two competitors told each other that they'd make the fight quick and promised not to go easy on the other. "I've decided that I like Kankurou's hat."

Hinata giggled.

Shino snorted softly, though there was a smirk on his face as well.

"I'll get you one for your birthday then," Kakashi said. "You want it in black too?"

Naruto shook his head. "Nah, I mean I like it in an abstract, artistic sort of way. I wouldn't wear a hat with ears myself, though the way it covers so much of his head is a good idea... Hm, maybe in brown or olive, to match the rest of my clothes."

Kakashi chuckled. "I'll see what I can do," he promised.

"He's going to use Karasu it seems," Hinata observed, pointing to the fact that he'd removed it from his back. The bandages weren't floating around like they had the previous time though.

"Let the third fight begin," Hayate intoned.

It didn't last long, just as both participants had promised. Still, it _did_ show off their techniques. The guy who deliberately dislocated his joints so that he could move like rubber was kinda weird, but the _puppet_ it turned out he was trying to strangle was... really ugly and bedraggled looking actually. The technique was cool though, and all of team seven made a mental note to see if they could incorporate this brand of puppetry into their fighting styles. After all, it had a lot of potential uses.

The next fight however...

"They both lose," Hinata declared dispassionately as Sakura and Ino walked down to face each other.

"Eh?" yelped Kiba, Sakura's only present team mate.

"Ino has the advantage," Shikamaru pointed out.

Then Ino slapped Sakura rather than delivering a punch, and the fight changed.

"And Sakura fought for her life all five days," Shino countered. "And is constantly in the presence of her crush, who she strives to be worthy of, therefore, since leaving the Academy, Sakura should have pushed herself to improve, and then in the forest pushed herself even harder."

"Not to mention, Sakura is also slightly psychotic," Naruto added.

"And Ino and Sakura used to be best friends. They have a long history together. Sakura has something to prove to Ino and herself, where Ino is just used to being better than her friend. Or rival I suppose is the better word, since they compete so much," Hinata said, finishing off her own explanation as she watched the bout continue.

When after a ten minute long fist-fight, Ino caught Sakura in a mind-transfer jutsu – only to be kicked out again – Naruto reaffirmed what he'd said before.

"Ino-san said it, Sakura has _two_ minds. I told you she was slightly psychotic."

"Both combatants are unable to continue. Due to a double KO, no one will advance from the fourth preliminary match," Hayate said a moment later.

"You called it Hinata-chan," Kakashi said, a smile in his voice. "They both lose."

Hinata nodded. "I think they might have finally mended their friendship though," she added as team ten and Kiba rushed to where Kurenai and Asuma had propped the girls up against the wall to rest. A little surprising was that Lee was there right beside Kiba, but it was easily explained as a crush the older boy had for the pink-haired girl.

"Who's up next?" Naruto asked.

"Me," Tenten answered, vaulting easily over the rail before walking down the wall and across the floor to her opponent – Temari of Suna.

"This might be an interesting match," Neji commented quietly, while his team mate and sensei screamed their encouragements to the girl of the team.

"It's a panda against a butterfly," Naruto said with a chuckle, amused. "Just looking at their hair that is."

"I have heard it said that when a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, the shift in the air it creates will cause a hurricane somewhere else," Shino said.

Hinata and Naruto nodded.

"Our panda seems to be very well equipped, but the butterfly is just too fast to be hit," Hinata said a few moments later.

"The fan is nice," Naruto commented. "The butterfly can actually fly."

"I am more impressed by her vanishing with it," Shino said. "To make herself _and_ the large weapon simply disappear. Very impressive. You were right to ask for the butterfly's name before Naruto."

Naruto simply nodded.

Temari was declared the winner, and Lee had to catch Tenten's battered body before she landed unconscious and painfully on her own weapons, but then it was Shikamaru against the girl from Oto – Kin Tsuchi.

"Well, that's the last of the people who we could attack their hair," Naruto complained. "Apart from me and Neji," he added with a twisted smile, perfectly aware that he really needed a haircut.

"We could fix your hair right now," Shino offered, hand by his kunai pouch.

Naruto chuckled, but shook his head. "Should give whoever I'm up against as much of a handicap as possible right? They may not even think of it."

Hinata giggled. "How about we just shave it all off after this is over?" she suggested.

Naruto frowned. "You really think I could pull off bald?" he asked, genuinely considering it.

"Maybe just _very_ closely cropped," Kakashi put in. "But it won't matter beneath the hat I'm getting you, will it?"

Naruto chuckled. "Point," he ceded. "Alright, after the preliminaries are done, you can cut my hair so that it's only just long enough for Shino to hide his kikaichu in."

Team seven nodded, and turned back to the fight that was beginning below them. Shikamaru had walked _very_ slowly down the stairs. After that, it was a largely intellectual battle with a lot of talking. Actually, too _much_ talking and giving away of how techniques worked (Kin), or thought processes and how techniques could be manipulated (Shikamaru, though at least he mostly held off until after he'd won the fight). It was more like a demonstration than a fight, and the preliminaries were for elimination purposes, not really for judging if a genin would advance.

"Aw man," Naruto groaned when he saw that he was up next – against Inuzuka Kiba. "He's the heir to the Inuzuka clan. If I neuter him I'd be in big trouble."

"Then you'll just have to go for the hair," Hinata said consolingly, patting him on the arm.

"And beware the dog," Shino added.

Naruto sighed, but waved as he headed down to face his very much over-confident year-mate. The fight was ordered to start, and Kiba backed up to do a transformation technique – not just a henge, but something more genuinely physical – while telling his dog, Akamaru, that he wouldn't be needed for the fight. Naruto didn't bother correcting his opponent, after all, who gives up a handicap like that?

Kiba charged, planting his elbow in Naruto's gut rather than his freshly clawed hands. Naruto latched his own arms around the elbow and brought his left foot up to Kiba's stomach, letting go of the arm as he rolled onto his back. Kiba was sent flying. Foolishly, Kiba landed on his back and shoulders rather than his hands and feet. The wind was knocked out of him. Naruto took a pair of kunai and, placing a knee on Kiba's chest to further restrict his breathing, held one to Kiba's throat. The other he held _much_ lower.

Akamaru was shifting on his feet, keeping back at the very obvious threat to his master. If he moved to attack Naruto, he wouldn't reach the boy before Kiba was killed or maimed.

"Call it," Naruto ordered. "I don't _want_ to hurt a fellow Konoha ninja more than I could right now."

"Winner, Uzumaki Naruto," Hayate allowed.

Naruto nodded and put away his kunai, then offered Kiba a hand up. "There, no lasting damage, just remember not to underestimate your opponents, or overestimate yourself," he advised.

Kiba nodded, still wheezing slightly, and allowed himself to be helped up. "Akamaru?" he called, turning to look for his dog as he stood.

The puppy in question barked and launched himself into Kiba's arms.

With one last nod, Naruto headed back up to his team.

"Nicely done," Shino complemented. "Very tidy."

"And thank you for not neutering him," Kakashi added with a slight shiver. He had dog summons after all, the concept was uncomfortable for him.

"Thanks Shino, Kakashi-sensei. So Hinata, who do you want to fight?" Naruto asked.

Hinata silently pointed to the last of the Oto nin. "Other options are Lee-san, Chouji, Neji-nii-san, and Gaara," she explained. "While Lee-san might not be so bad for me, I of hope he gets the chance to prove himself in the finals, which leaves the Akimichi clan heir, my cousin, and..." she didn't have to tell her team why she didn't want to fight Gaara. Naruto had been the one to explain to both her and Shino what was going on with the red-head after all.

Shino and Naruto nodded in understanding.

"Lady Luck is fickle however," Kakashi said with a sigh, drawing attention to the board that was flashing Hinata's name, and the name of her cousin.

"I warn you Hinata-sama," Neji said as they walked down to the floor. "Give up. People cannot change; you were a failure before, you will still be a failure."

Hinata just laughed. "People change every day Neji-nii-san, if they just try," she countered, then skipped off to the centre of the arena floor where they would fight.

Neji frowned, but followed.

"Please begin," Hayate said once both Hyuugas were before him.

Hinata didn't hesitate, though Neji looked like he wanted to speak more, to psych her out of competing, to make her quit all on her own. She used the opening to strike her fist into his lower abdomen – only _just_ above his crotch – and her other hand struck, open palmed, against Neji's face, breaking his nose and forcing chakra into the points around his face, disrupting his ability to see at all. A sweeping kick had her shocked older cousin down, and she pinned his hands with one of hers behind his back, the other hand holding a kunai to his throat. The same ending as for her team mates.

"Winner, Hyuuga Hinata," Hayate declared, seeing that Neji was not resisting the hold.

Gently, Hinata straightened out Neji's nose and unblocked the all chakra pathways she had hit – those in his face, in his gut, and in his legs that she had disabled with her kick. "See, Neji-nii-san? I'm obviously not the same girl I used to be," she said as she pulled him up. "And please don't call me '-sama' when Father and the elders aren't around to disapprove," she added.

Neji didn't answer, he was too busy staring in shock at his younger cousin. Was it really possible for people to change?

"Come on Neji-nii-san," Hinata said, tugging his arm in the direction of the stairs. "We have to get out of the way for the next fight."

The next fight was between Lee and Gaara. It was really quite impressive.

"Lee is handsome when he fights," Hinata observed cheekily, in hearing of both Neji and Sakura.

"He's already professed his undying love for _me_!" Sakura yelled passionately, frowning at the other girl.

Neji was still speechless with horror at the idea of Hinata possibly having a romantic interest in his foolish team mate.

Hinata smirked at Sakura, even though the pink-haired girl was holding Hinata's collar in one fist. "But _you_ like Uchiha-san," she answered. "I can't see why though. Lee-san is older, kinder, more passionate, so dedicated to Konoha and the people here -"

"While Uchiha-baka is an arse to everybody, has an ego-complex, and is really only loyal to the idea of killing his brother," Naruto put in. "The difference to Lee-san's speed without his weights is very impressive. He must be very strong to carry those weights all the time."

"Any girl who Lee-san shows an interest in would be lucky to have his attention," Shino agreed blandly. "That is, if he survives this fight."

"What?" Neji demanded, finally finding his voice. "What do you mean by that?" he asked, focused on Shino.

Shino shrugged. "We passed over where the Suna team were on the first day. Gaara crushed an enemy nin to death in a coffin of sand," he explained. "If Lee-san gets caught, it will likely be the end of his ninja career at best, end of his life at worst."

"Who cares if he's a little loud sometimes?" Hinata said, still smirking at Sakura, who was still holding onto her collar. "Or that his eyebrows are thick? He _can_ be quiet and controlled, and it's not a big deal to wax eyebrows after all."

Sakura broke at last, releasing Hinata's collar and turning desperately towards the fight. "_Lee_!" she yelled as the sand shell that looked like Gaara began to crumble in the crater. "Please! Don't get yourself killed for this! Just a promotion isn't worth you getting- getting -" she couldn't even bring herself to say it.

"He is fighting to prove his nindo," Gai said. "That he can be a great ninja without the use of ninjutsu or genjutsu."

"How can he prove his nindo if he's _dead_?" Sakura demanded. "A great ninja doesn't throw their lives away like that! To prove his point this way would be counter-productive!" she screamed, and then she started to cry.

"Sakura-chan," Lee said quietly, looking up at her. He sighed, and smiled. "I cannot continue to fight," he said. "I forfeit."

Hayate nodded. "Winner, Gaara."

Lee nodded and hurried back to his place beside his sensei.

Sakura threw her arms around him, still crying, but now muttering over and over 'thank goodness' as she held onto him.

Lee smiled gently and wrapped his hurting arms around her.

Gaara returned to his own place on the opposite viewing platform, visibly pissed. He'd just been getting into the swing of things. He hadn't gotten to pay back the fuzzy-brows for actually landing a hit on him, for landing more than just one; there hadn't been any blood from his opponent to decorate the floor. No, Gaara was _not_ satisfied.

Regardless of his satisfaction though, Hayate announced the beginning of the tenth – and final – match, and called the fighters to step up. Dosu Kinuta against Akimichi Chouji. The fight didn't last long, even with Chouji being furious about Dosu having called him fat. The Akimichi boy was laid out while the last of the Oto genin went through to the third stage of the exam proper.

Everybody who had won their match was given their assigned opponent for the third stage, and dismissed for a month of preparatory training. Some of them would need it more than others.

"This is not good," Naruto decided as he and the rest of team seven left the building where the preliminaries had taken place, each of them contemplating the tournament match ups for the final stage of the chuunin exam.

"It gets worse I'm afraid," Kakashi put in. "Kurenai just asked me to help train the Uchiha in the proper use of his sharingan."

"That makes no sense," Shino said. "She may not be able to train him in the use of his sharingan, but he is the only one of her students that will be competing in the third stage of the exam, but all three of us will be as well."

"What did you tell her, Kakashi-sensei?" Hinata asked.

"I said that I would give him some instruction, but not until after the exams, as I would be quite busy with my own cute students," Kakashi said, then sighed. "But the Hokage got in on it and made it an order, so now I _have_ to train Sasuke for the next month. Because he's ordering me to neglect my own students when they need me, however, I was able to convince the Hokage to supervise your training in my absence."

"Wow," Naruto breathed, awed, then shook his head. "That still leaves us with the problem of me and Hinata having to fight each other straight up, and then one of us will fight Gaara after that!"

"You don't believe I'll be able to get the Uchiha up to a standard where he could defeat Gaara?" Kakashi asked. "I am hurt."

The genin all shook their heads. "It's not that Kakashi-sensei," Hinata said, patting his arm.

"It's that Gaara is like Naruto," Shino added.

"Only the raccoon is crazy and bloodthirsty and driving Gaara to insanity. Problems I don't have," Naruto finished. "Not to mention, Gaara saw the Uchiha's fight, but the Uchiha didn't see Gaara's," he added.

"A serious handicap," Kakashi agreed with a sigh. "For now though, we have a head to shave!" he said, pulling the tie from and messing up Naruto's long blonde hair. He felt it was a bit of a shame to cut it all off, since it made him look distinguished, even if in a completely different way to his father. "Before that though, we should have a team picture taken."

"And another one after," Hinata added with a giggle. "So Naruto can see how different it looks."

Shino nodded in agreement.

Naruto pulled his hair back into the high ponytail and agreed with a smile.

~oOo~

They'd rigged the fight. As soon as Naruto's hair was cut back, he and Hinata had done a test – regarding the reality of sealing all the tenketsu of a jinchuriki – the result meant that it would be Naruto and not Hinata who would face Gaara. After that, with help from Shino, they'd spent all the time they weren't being supervised by the Sandaime to choreograph their fight. It had to show off Hinata's skills appropriately for her family and for the judges to approve her promotion, even though Naruto was going to be the one to win the fight.

It helped that, with the Sandaime supervising their training, they could ask questions about what sort of criteria was used to judge fitness for promotion.

The fight ended with Hinata's back to the wall, trapped there by the half-circle removed from the edge of Zabuza's sword, and Naruto above her with a kunai to her throat in one hand while the other still held the giant sword perfectly level, even at the odd angle. If Naruto had been on the ground she could have hit him and escaped, but her arms weren't quite long enough to reach around the blade and up to him, and though she was flexible enough to have used her legs, the angle was very much to Naruto's advantage.

"Winner, Uzumaki Naruto," Hayate's replacement, Shiranui Genma, announced. Everybody present who knew Naruto and Hinata, excepting Shino, was surprised by the fight and the end result. If Kakashi had been present, then he wouldn't have been surprised either, but he was taking advantage of his reputation for being late (he was only perfectly punctual with his team) to make the Uchiha late for his fight. Still, with so many people there _just_ to see him, his fight was postponed rather than the boy being disqualified like any other genin would have been.

The Uchiha wasn't the only one missing in action though. The Oto genin, Dosu, had been completely removed from the line-up. Shikamaru should be glad he wouldn't have the extra fight to go through, though he clearly wasn't thrilled about fighting another girl. There was Shino's fight against Kankurou to come first though.

Kankurou, who was frowning.

"You will fight me in that arena, right now, or I swear to Kami that my team and I will vivisect you alive in the back room," Shino growled.

Hinata and Naruto nodded solemnly, their eyes cold.

Kankurou swallowed nervously but nodded also, then headed for the stairs.

Once Kankurou was out of sight, Shino dissolved into a swarm of kikai, solidifying into himself once more down on the ground before Kankurou came out the door at the bottom. Rather like Gaara's trick with sand, but bugs instead.

Kankurou froze for a moment when he saw that Shino was waiting for him, then walked out for the match.

"I don't know what extra tricks your puppet has," Shino said, "but I'm only going to give you until the count of ten to use it."

Kankurou gritted his teeth, angry now, and unwrapped Karasu, ready for battle.

"Begin," Genma ordered.

The puppet flew at Shino, who simply jumped over it. "One," he said.

Karasu followed him up.

"Two," Shino counted, as he threw a brace of small stars at Kankurou. "Three."

Kankurou dodged.

"Four." Shino landed on the side of the wall. "Five."

Kankurou shifted his chakra strings.

"Six."

Karasu turned in the air and headed for Shino again.

"Seven."

Shino dropped from the wall and ran towards Kankurou. "Eight." He was ignoring Karasu completely, even though it was gaining on him.

"Nine." He threw a punch at Kankurou, who only just managed to dodge.

"Ten," Shino said with a slight smirk. Behind him, Karasu froze when it had been about to wrap its arms around Shino's body.

"What did you do?" Kankurou demanded, even as he started shaking from chakra exhaustion – which made no sense to him at all.

Shino held out his arms, and his kikai swarmed from Karasu's joints back to him. More left the exhausted Kankurou as well. "I said until the count of ten," Shino reminded his opponent, then applied a powerful kick to Kankurou's stomach before levelling a kunai to his neck.

"Winner, Aburame Shino."

In the next fight, Shikamaru's against Temari, Shikamaru used the holes that Hinata had left behind (she'd drilled them with an earth technique so that she could break Naruto's nose from beneath him, rather like she'd broken Neji's nose) and caught Temari with his shadow technique before quitting, citing that he was running low on chakra and of the two-hundred actions available to him, giving up was in his best interest.

Temari was rather annoyed, understandably, and the crowd in the stands were shocked in general, but the match was over, and she was the winner.

"So your next match will be against the butterfly, eh Shino?" Naruto said.

Shino smirked, just a little, behind his high collar.

"And yours is against the raccoon," Hinata reminded Naruto firmly.

Sasuke hadn't shown up yet, and was cutting it _very_ close, but even if he wasn't disqualified for being late to his own fight, team seven were all quite, _quite_ certain that he wouldn't win against Gaara.

"You don't seem to have much confidence in the Uchiha," Kankurou commented with a sneer, "and what's this about butterflies?"

"In her fight against Tenten-san, Temari-san reminded us of a butterfly," Hinata said. "Because of her hairstyle, and using wind techniques," she explained.

Kakashi chose that moment to appear in the middle of the arena with his temporary student.

"Are we too late?" he asked.

Genma sighed. "Only your student for a month, and already he's picked up your habit of being tardy," he said. "No, but only just. The match against Uchiha Sasuke and Gaara of Suna will now begin!"

The crowd roared its approval. Kakashi disappeared to the viewing platform where he team stood, and Gaara appeared in the arena.

"How did your fights go?" Kakashi asked.

"Naruto and Shino will move onto the next round," Hinata answered. "But I put in a good showing."

"How was training with the bastard, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked, jerking his thumb at where Sasuke was rushing to attack Gaara.

Kakashi sighed. "Not very good," he admitted. "You three have spoiled me. I'm so used to genin who will work hard and push themselves that when I am faced with Sasuke-chan I see a whining child who wants everything to be handed to him, as though strength and power can be bought. Or more to the point with his bloodline, stolen. Convincing him that he has limits, and that he has to exert himself to stretch them, is a trying experience. Brat may just kill himself trying to win."

"Not chuunin quality material then," Shino observed flatly.

"No," Kakashi agreed. "But tell me how your month went."

"We trained a lot," Hinata said.

"But not as hard as if you'd been there Kakashi-sensei," Naruto added. "The replacement you gave us just supervised, rather than worked with us."

"We did get to find out all the criteria that we would be judged by for us to become chuunin though," Shino finished.

"How did you conduct the first fight?" Kakashi asked, looking from Naruto to Hinata, concern showing in his single visible eye. "You hadn't come to a decision before I had to leave you."

"Choreographed to perfection," Shino supplied.

Kakashi sighed gratefully. "I'm glad to hear it," he said proudly. "So, after today I won't have a team of cute genin any more. I'll be in charge of a squad of cute chuunin." He sniffed and brushed away an imaginary tear. "You've all grown up so fast!"

Team seven laughed quietly at their sensei, not wanting to disturb the fight going on below with their levity. The fighters, on the other hand, were _quite _happy to interrupt the laughter with screams of pain. Sasuke's to be specific. The boy had gained speed under Kakashi's training, but not sense, and Gaara had caught and was crushing the last Uchiha.

"He may have to resign himself to his _other_ goal," Naruto said, full of false sympathy. "Rebuilding the Uchiha clan."

"What's with the feathers?" Hinata asked, pointing to the stands.

"Genjutsu," Kakashi answered, his voice tight.

"You haven't taught us much about those yet Kakashi-sensei," Naruto pointed out.

"Then there's the basics in how to dispel one," Kakashi said hurriedly. "There are two ways, interrupt the flow of your own chakra, disrupting the hold of the genjutsu over you, or send out a pulse of your chakra to disrupt the genjutsu itself. The former is generally more reliable, as the latter will have more or less success depending on the strength of the genjutsu and the amount of chakra you have. Pain is also a good way to free yourself of a genjutsu."

"Chakra pulse?" Naruto asked.

"Gather a tight ball of chakra within yourself, then release it outwards," Kakashi explained, then demonstrated for the boy.

Naruto nodded and, while Hinata and Shino just interrupted their chakra flow, Naruto gathered his chakra before releasing it. Kakashi's chakra pulse had radiated around him one metre. Naruto's extended just past the outside of the stands full of people, incidentally dispelling the genjutsu for everybody present, even the civilians who had come to watch despite knowing nothing about chakra.

Shino frowned. "Please do not do that too often Naruto," he said sternly from where Naruto's chakra pulse had knocked him to the ground – along with everybody else in the balcony. "And if you truly feel the need, please give warning first."

Naruto nodded sheepishly and turned to look down into the arena.

"So is it my turn to fight Gaara now?" he called, noting that Sasuke seemed to be rather bloodied where he lay.

"Er..." Genma looked across to where Gaara had been, still all wrapped up in his sand cocoon. "Winner, Gaara of Suna," he announced. "The next match will now begin?"

"You'll win," Hinata ordered, fixing her gaze with Naruto's.

"Of course he will," Shino agreed. "Nine tails beats one."

"Especially since I'm not psychotic," Naruto said with a smile.

"Just a little odd," Kakashi quipped. "Go on. There's fights going on in the stands, even with everybody awake, so I'm off as well. There's no telling what's going on out in Konoha itself."

Team seven nodded in agreement, and Naruto vaulted down to the ground.

"Seriously though Naruto-san," Genma said quietly. "There's no way the exam is still being properly monitored. You don't have to fight this guy."

Naruto snorted indelicately. "You know what I hold, Shiranui-san?" he asked rhetorically.

Genma swallowed, but nodded slightly.

"He's got one to my nine, and even I can smell snake on the air." Naruto saw Genma pale at his words. "Now tell me honestly that you would send someone else to fight Gaara. Apart from a kage or sannin," he said quickly, but firmly. "Or another one of the biju between me and him," Naruto added darkly.

Genma nodded. "If you survive this Naruto-san, I'll recommend you for promotion, that is some very logical thinking. What about your team mates?"

"Taking care of his by now I expect, if Shikamaru didn't just trap them in his jutsu," Naruto answered. "My team mates both know what he is too, and they know better than to jump into this fight for me." Naruto smirked. "You're going to what to stand back, Shiranui-san," he said. "Or you're likely to get stepped on by mistake. All three of us would hate for you to get squished," he added, tapping his stomach to let Genma know who the third party was.

Genma's eyes went wide, and he nodded before jumping back. "Begin!" he called.

~oOo~

She opened her eyes wide behind her boy's. She flexed her aura and her chakra through his system. She stretched her tails leisurely, languidly – warningly. She was the most playful of her kin, the only one who really tried to be gentle, but she was also the oldest, the wisest, and the most powerful of them.

She alone had survived so long without captured in any way. She was not bloodthirsty like the raccoon before her, but she was not rash like him either. _He_ had barely been truly free for more than a few moments every century or so.

She was the greatest of them all. She _would_ make him submit to her.

Her boy was so wonderfully helpful and open to her as well, letting her manifest her chakra outside of his body. She stood proudly before her opponent, even as he stood defiantly before her.

She lashed her chakra, her aura, her presence against him, the least of her kindred. It didn't take her long to subdue him. It was still something of a mess though, even with both of them less than half the size they had been when they were free.

_Now you can go,_ she whispered to her boy, even as she drew herself back in, letting him know that the fight would now be between him, and the other boy. The raccoon would not interfere, and neither would she.

Hers was such a good boy. He let her poke at things she was curious about, and run, and play, and he listened to her when she told him things. Why, the boy's playfulness would have inspired her to say he must have had some fox in him, except of course that she knew how literally true that was.

~oOo~

Naruto walked calmly up to Gaara, who was staring at him with terror in his milky-green eyes.

"What are you going to do with me?" Gaara asked, his voice shaking slightly.

Naruto shook his head. Around them, the arena floor was a mess from the clashing of the raccoon's sand against the fox's chakra. It really was a very good thing for Genma that he'd chosen to wait on the wall. The two boys were unharmed though, and now that the fight between their prisoners was over, it would be safe for Genma to come down again.

"I'm not going to do anything that I don't have to," Naruto said. "I've already won after all, haven't I?" he pointed out.

Gaara nodded frantically. "You win, you win!" he cried. "Just please don't hurt me!" Lee had been the first to ever land a hit on him. The Uchiha had not done as well, but now Gaara was faced with someone who had defeated the monster inside of him from fifteen feet away, but would have no problem with causing Gaara pain if he thought it expedient.

"Kneel, with your hands behind your head," Naruto instructed quietly. "That's the position captured people are forced into. It proves that you are vulnerable and at my mercy."

Once Gaara had done that, Naruto was announced the winner of the match. This earned him distracted cheering from the people fighting in the stands. For himself though, Naruto tied Gaara's hands together behind his head so that the Suna nin wouldn't be able to use any active jutsu. His passive sand shield was probably sensible, but no harm would come from him until he was released.

Naruto picked up the older boy – and his gourd – and took him back to the viewing balcony that the other competitors were standing in. Kakurou and Temari had been tied up as well, so Naruto set down his prisoner with them.

"So, do we join the general fight or see if we can help out the Hokage?" Hinata asked, pointing to the large barrier on top of the building where the two kages had been sitting. Trees were beginning to burst up from the tiled roof within.

"Split," Naruto ordered. "Hinata, Shikamaru, you'll be more use to Konoha by dealing with the invaders. Either stick together or find your parents, see if you can't learn on the job. Shino, you're with me. If we can't get inside that barrier in a reasonable time-frame though, we'll join the regular fighting too."

Team seven and Shikamaru nodded in agreement, and they were off.

"Any ideas how we're going to get in?" Shino asked as they raced for the building. "There are AnBu just sitting outside of it after all."

"We're going to try coming up from underneath," Naruto explained. "Most barrier techniques don't put limits on the terrain, just the space."

Shino nodded his agreement to the plan and they ducked into the building beneath the battle.

"Ta-da," Naruto announced flatly, a disgusted frown pulling at his face. "Proof that invaders and defenders alike are stupid. Why are we the first ones here?" Naruto asked rhetorically.

Shino shook his head and sent up a couple of kikai to investigate how things were going on the other side of the roof. They returned moments later.

"The battle is happening on the other side of the spine at the moment. You're clear to punch through," Shino informed his friend. "I've also sent some kikai to start eating the chakra of Sandaime-sama's opponent."

Naruto nodded and laid a carefully balanced collection of exploding tags. They didn't want to kill themselves, they didn't want to draw a lot of attention, and they didn't want to risk the structural integrity of the roof – just make a hole big enough for the average adult Konoha nin to get through.

Naruto stuck his head up and looked around quickly, then ducked down again.

"I'm going to take out one of the corners of this mess," he said. "Whoever the Hokage is fighting isn't the Kazekage, but it sure looks like he's fighting the Shodai and the Nidaime as well as whoever was pretending to be the Kazekage."

Shino nodded. "Meaning he needs all the help he can get," he finished. "It's a good thing kikai don't get fat."

Naruto chuckled. "They just stop when they're full," he agreed, and moved off to one of the corners while Shino sent small portions of his colony through at intervals, so that they wouldn't be spotted among the trees that the Shodai had grown as part of the battle.

Shino had his kikai insinuate themselves all over the Sandaime's three opponents, leeching away their chakra carefully but quickly. He didn't want the unknown attacker to be able to react too quickly when Naruto blew a hole underneath one of the Oto nin holding up the barrier that was keeping the AnBu out.

There was no _particular_ reason for Naruto to choose the corner that he did. He didn't know the skills or abilities of any of the four ninja holding the barrier. The two he'd been able to see from his survey out of the hole he'd made actually didn't look all that impressive. One was fat – and yes, he knew Chouji had a lot more going for him than his girth, and that any ninja that wide _had_ to, but Naruto wasn't keen on getting squished just for having opened up another hole beneath him. The other was a girl – and Naruto knew that a kunoichi was equally as deadly as any male ninja, he had Hinata on his team after all, but he wasn't keen on completely mangling a girl all the same. So he went for one of the other corners. Conveniently, the AnBu were on that side, so they'd get to see the hole being blown and one of the enemy nin going down.

Or up in smoke as the case may be.

One ka-boom later, and Naruto was surprised at the number of hands that were lying around the hole he'd made. He was sure there was only one person at each corner of the – now failed – barrier technique, and yet there six mutilated hands lying around, as well as a few pieces of head and a whole lot of human hamburger.

"Success," Naruto declared happily, then ducked back down through the hole he'd made. "How are things going on your end Shino?" he called.

"My kikai are getting very full," he reported. "And they didn't _exactly_ have empty stomachs before this," he pointed out. "Though testing their capacity on you once a week has allowed them to be able to consume more than they had been able to when we met."

Naruto smiled. "Glad to be of help," he said. He still never noticed the bugs eating his chakra. He just had too much for them to make a dent.

Shino nodded. "The barrier is down?" he asked.

Naruto nodded but frowned. "There were too many hands though," he said. "No person has _six_ hands."

Shino's eyebrows drew together, but shook his head. This was not the time to be contemplating the oddities of their dead opponents. This was the time to be removing heads from shoulders and hearts from chests – all in the name of protecting their village and kage, of course.

~oOo~

An injured, but still living, Sandaime Hokage was able to announce the promotions a month later when he was let out of the hospital. In that time most teams had been working hard to re-build Konoha, though some had been given the task of escorting certain prisoners back to Suna, while the Torture and Interrogation Department held others for questioning, execution, or both as was the case for Orochimaru.

"I'm proud of you three," Kakashi told them after the promotion ceremony. "You're not my cute genin any more though."

"No," Hinata agreed with a smile. "Now we're your cute chuunin!" More important to her than her promotion were the changes within the Hyuuga that had come because of it. She was now confirmed as the Hyuuga heir, and would take over for her father as Head of the family when the time came. The elders had acknowledged her strength, and her father was willing to teach her the secrets of the main branch, making her even stronger.

Kakashi nodded in agreement. "So, what shall we do to celebrate? Where's a food place we haven't gone yet?"

The new chuunin looked across at each other, then together chorused their answer: "Ramen!"

~The End~


End file.
